The Daily Mail has been making headlines after running a story suggesting that Ed Miliband’s father hated Britain. How seriously should this news article really be taken?
It is worth bearing in mind that Ed Miliband is not his father, obvious I know, but the Daily Mail have clearly decided that running a story slandering Mr Ralph Miliband is in the public interest, however as rational human beings I think it’s fair to say that the majority of us are only interested in the political beliefs of the actual Ed Miliband whether we support him or not. What our parents believe is likely to affect us in some manner, whether we adopt the same beliefs, use the beliefs as a launch pad into forming our own opinions, or push and resist against them. For The Daily Mail to use the term “A legacy of evil” is downright disgraceful, as Ed Miliband put it “Evil is a word reserved for certain cases” and I must say I completely agree; some acts are so heinous that no other word seems to fit, but to follow Marxism and question the fairness and functions of capitalism is certainly not one of them.
The Daily Mail went on to suggest that the public have a right to know that Ralph Miliband “hated British institutions such as the queen, the church, the army and wanted a workers revolution.”
Call me a crazy Marxist if you will (however I am not) but as an atheist I don’t think particularly highly of the church or any organised religion for that matter. I consider the queen to be an irrelevance that some of the country are for some odd reason still enamoured by and am thankful for the Case of Proclamations (1610) and Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. As for the armed forces, each and every member has my full support, whatever that means to them, but I can understand having issue with what they are sometimes ordered to do.
Finally a Workers Revolution, what is so bad about that?! The workers are people who keep this country moving and they are also some of the most trodden on people in Britain. Low pay, cuts in hours and being subjected to the scandalously under regulated sky high prices they need contend with when private renting. While pay has been frozen for the mass majority of people we see bankers who caused the collapse of this country receive large wages and high bonuses and FTSE100 companies seeing a huge hike in their pay since 2010. It is blatantly obvious to us all that the working man did not cause the economic collapse but they have in fact paid for it and continue to do so, so is a workers revolution really such a mad and unfair ideal to hold on to?
The Daily Mail has its own dark past of being rather supportive of a certain Adolf Hitler though they are quick to dismiss it, why? Because it isn’t really all that relevant is it? Neither is using the beliefs of a deceased father to attack a politician. Being offended shouldn’t afford you any rights, but surely The Daily Mail can think of better ways to attack a politician, perhaps on HIS beliefs or HIS proposed policies? Maybe not, maybe they can’t and maybe we should just ignore them.